Owen Hargreaves explains why England’s “golden generation” failed

"I think we failed Scholes, Gerrard and Lampard."

England really had some brilliant players between 2000 and 2008. They lacked a world class goalkeeper and left-sided midfielder, but almost every other position was packed with quality. From Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Sol Campbell at the back, to Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in midfield, with Michael Owen up front, the team was full of very talented players. Ashley Cole was consistently excellent at left-back, David Beckham had one of the best deliveries in world football and when Wayne Rooney burst onto the scene at Euro 2004, it looked as though the team had found the missing piece to go from contenders to potential champions. However, England failed to make it past the quarter-finals at the World Cup in 2002, at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup. Defeat at the 2004 and 2006 tournaments would prove particularly regretful. On both occasions, Sven-Goran Eriksson's team lost on penalties to Portugal. It's debatable about whether England were good enough to win any of those tournaments, but the level of talent in the squads probably warranted more than three quarter-final exits. There have been numerous theories offered about England's failures, from the "lottery" of penalties to the pressure on the players, but Owen Hargreaves mentioned neither when discussing the team's shortcomings. The former Bayern Munich and Manchester United midfielder, who was part of England's squad for all three of the aforementioned tournaments and won 42 caps, reckons they came up short because of tactical failures, and a failure to build the team around its best talents. "As great as they are – Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes – they were actually incredible team players, so they would never say, ‘I expect to play here and I only play here’," Hargreaves said on BBC 5 Live. The former midfielder then said that the failure to pick a better balanced midfield, and just one forward, cost them.

"Paul Scholes freely went and played on the left-wing. A lot of other people would have said, ‘not in 10 million years am I going to play out there’. Because they were really good soldiers, they would always try play together in a four-four-two, and we always played two up (front), which meant when we played good teams in Europe, when they were good in possession, all of a sudden we had quite a few passengers. I think we failed Scholes, Gerrard and Lampard. We failed them by not building around them... You can’t have 10 stars, we needed to make a focal point… If we had have played one up (front), we would’ve got the best out of them. We had options, but because we played two up top… maybe in midfield, it put a lot of pressure on Frank and Stevie G in defensive responsibilities as well."

You can watch Hargreaves here: https://twitter.com/5liveSport/status/916412244132552709 Hargreaves also spoke about being booed while playing for England. https://twitter.com/5liveSport/status/916379813891284992